Wildfire smoke
Wildfire-smoke episode, 2018-11-09 through 2018-11-20
Named source Camp Fire 153,336 acres , CA · IRWIN 2018-CABTU-016737
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 228.4 µg/m³ near Sacramento across 4 covered metros home to 9.9 million people. 3 metros recorded their worst day on record; 4 placed a top-ten day.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 46.3 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 460 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.
Measured daily PM2.5 at EPA monitors, as cigarette-equivalents
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Episode peak
-- cigarettes
The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.
What happened, in the record
Qualified frozen evidence supports wildfire smoke as the broad cause for this time-bounded episode and supports grouping 2 overlapping event records. Qualified frozen evidence supports wildfire smoke as the broad cause for this time-bounded episode and supports grouping 2 overlapping event records.
Sequence: San Francisco (Nov 9) → Sacramento (Nov 10) → Stockton (Nov 14) → San Jose (Nov 14)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sacramento--Roseville--Arden-Arcade, CA | 228.4 µg/m³ | 46.1 | Nov 15, 2018 | #2 of its top days |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA | 195.4 µg/m³ | 58.8 | Nov 16, 2018 | Worst day on record |
| Stockton-Lodi, CA | 188 µg/m³ | 53.9 | Nov 16, 2018 | Worst day on record |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 138.4 µg/m³ | 34.9 | Nov 16, 2018 | Worst day on record |
"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.
The evidence
Official records
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 16, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 16, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 16, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 9, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 10, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 15, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 9, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Wildfire, CALIFORNIA, Nov 8, 2018 "An extended period of dry weather through the summer and fall with above normal temperatures coupled with a gusty north to northeast wind event created a situation for extremely rapid fire growth. A large wildfire develo…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 10, 2018 "Wildfire smoke brought areas of dense smoke, with visibility levels at times dropping to less than a half mile. Hazardous air quality was measured across much of the Central Valley and Delta, causing numerous school and …" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 10, 2018 "Wildfire smoke brought areas of dense smoke, with visibility levels at times dropping to less than a half mile. Hazardous air quality was measured across much of the Central Valley and Delta, causing numerous school and …" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 10, 2018 "Wildfire smoke brought areas of dense smoke, with visibility levels at times dropping to less than a half mile. Hazardous air quality was measured across much of the Central Valley and Delta, causing numerous school and …" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 9, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 10, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
- NOAA Storm Events Dense Smoke, CALIFORNIA, Nov 15, 2018 "Wildfire smoke from the Camp Fire in northern California brought widespread unhealthy air quality to the Central Coast and the Bay Area through late November. A persistent upper ridge over the eastern Pacific kept condit…" record →
EPA AQS monitor qualifier 50
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 24 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-16, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 24 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-15, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 24 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-18, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 16 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-14, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 24 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-10, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 24 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-13, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 70 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-16, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 68 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-13, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 24 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-17, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 145 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-14, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 144 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-19, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 69 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2018-11-11, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- +38 more EPA AQS records on file
Agency and publisher pages 3
- Camp Fire Air Quality Data Analysis CARB's analysis concludes that Camp Fire smoke caused dangerously high air pollution in the Sacramento Valley and Bay Area from November 8 through 22, 2018.
- Smoke Text Product: November 9, 2018 NOAA satellite analysis states that thick smoke from the Camp Fire moved west through the Sacramento Valley and south toward the San Francisco Bay area.
- Wildfires in California CDC reports that Camp Fire smoke spread over the Sacramento Valley and down to the San Francisco Bay Area beginning November 9, 2018, with sustained extreme PM2.5 in Sacramento County.
What remains uncertain
- AQS qualifiers are submitting-agency causal flags and do not by themselves establish EPA concurrence.
- The evidence resolves the broad cause but does not require a named fire, facility, or incident.
Status and provenance
Research preview: this record carries research-only status and its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence review completes. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula.